Communis Series
by PinPin13
Summary: Young Stephanie, Mary Lou, and Eddie might have been even crazier than their adult selves let on. One shots & challenge responses.
1. Ligamen

Disclaimer– I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

Sally's Sewing Challenge – PerfectlyPlum, April 2011

**Communis Ligamen  
><strong>By PinPin

_Thump._ Her lips were pinched together in a desperate effort. Her shoulders were silently shaking.

_Thump._ Puffs of air escaped through her nose as quick, ragged breaths.

_Thump. Thump._ One tiny, errant, high-pitched mew sounded in her throat.

_Thump. Thump._ Stephanie was forced to hide her face in her hands to combat the flood of laughter bubbling up inside her.

The classroom was humming with a rote productivity. Each student sat in front of a heavy, bulky, ancient Merrow, holding a length of fabric in the process of being hemmed, some more skillfully than others. Outside the largest window at the front of the class, Mary Lou's face popped into sight for a split second before disappearing behind a large Nannyberry bush. Stephanie looked down at the wrinkled canvas in her hands and told herself not to look up again. She could see Eddie in her periphery, fighting his own snicker-battle at the desk beside her.

Stephanie checked the wall clock. There were only five minutes until the bell. "Maybe this isn't going to work this time," she whispered to him.

Eddie cut his eyes to the front, double checking that they weren't being watched. "It better work," he whispered back. "I'm not pulling a 'Plan B' with you today."

In the front of the class, Miss Dixon was engrossed in her inspection of a stack of amateurishly patched denim jeans, studying each pair like they were the lost map to El Dorado.

_Thump._ "What is she deaf?" Stephanie hissed.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

That morning:

Eddie shifted his backpack out of the seat across the aisle and into his lap just as Stephanie flopped down in its place.

"I hate my sister," she immediately pouted without a greeting.

"That's common knowledge at this point."

"Yes, but I have an entirely new reason today."

He rolled his eyes and deadpanned, "That's awful. I wish you'd tell me all about it."

"Shut up," she huffed. "I can't wait until graduation. I'm so sick of Chambersburg."

"Newark isn't exactly glamorous you know."

"It's not Trenton," she insisted as if that was praise enough.

They both looked up as the bus stopped to let more students climb aboard. Mary Lou rushed to them and slid into the seat next to Eddie with an exaggerated breath. There was color in her cheeks and she was winded. "I'm such a moron. I remembered at the last second that I left my Biology paper in the dining room last night and I had to run home to get it in these boots. I almost didn't make it back."

"You're lucky you didn't break your neck," Stephanie laughed at the spiked heels of her friend's suede slouch boots.

Mary Lou admired them thoughtfully for a second. "Lenny likes them," she said with a smile.

Eddie leaned forward to talk around Mary Lou. "Did you finish you're banner, Steph?"

"Not yet, I'll have to do the last part in class today."

"Let me see what you did," he demanded. "Mine is all fucked up. I still can't believe you talked me into taking this class in the first place."

"It was supposed to be easy." Stephanie said, fishing around at the bottom of her bag. "At least your parents aren't expecting you to do well. You know they'd be all over you to ace shop class if you'd taken that." She produced a rolled length of cloth and handed it over to him. "I picked the windmill pattern."

Eddie and Mary Lou unrolled the banner and held it up in front of them. They stared at it for a moment before Eddie asked, "Shit, Steph, what did you do?"

"What?"

"Well, look at it," Mary Lou said. She, of course, had already passed all of the homemaking classes with perfect marks. Now she was pointing out the geometric pattern of the blades on the largest windmill of Stephanie's banner. "This piece was supposed to be over here and this other piece you sewed on in the wrong direction. Now it's a swastika."

"What?" Stephanie said incredulously. "No it's not." She grabbed the banner back and spread it out in her lap. Her eyes grew wide. "Holy crap!"

Eddie chuckled under his breath. "You can't turn in your seasonal project with a big red swastika on it!"

"How did I not notice that?" Stephanie's head was in her hands.

"You have to check the entire thing for mistakes at each stage," Mary Lou explained. "If you only focus on the little bits, you'll screw up the larger effect."

"And unwittingly create Third Reich propaganda," Eddie chortled.

"What am I going to do? I can't fail HomeEc; my mother will disown me!"

"Remember that geography project last year?" Eddie asked. "We'll force a postponement. It's Friday; we'll have the weekend to fix them."

Mary Lou groaned, "I don't like the sound of that."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Other students in the class had started to notice the disturbance outside the window and were stifling their own laughter at the picture Mary Lou made, winding up her throw like Cy Young in drag and letting fly before ducking back down behind the landscaping.

_Thump._ Another pine cone hit the window and bounced off the glass with the dull report of a wet tennis ball.

_Thump._ For ten minutes, Mary Lou had been chucking pine cones at that window. Stephanie could clearly see that Miss Dixon heard it all but was purposefully ignoring it.

_Thump._ If something didn't happen soon, time would run out and they'd all have to hand in their banners as they left class, Stephanie's still sporting a Nazi emblem and Eddie's looking like it'd been chewed on by a vacuum cleaner.

_Thump. Thump. Thump._ Mary Lou reappeared around the side of the shrubs. She waved her arms in exasperation, eyes bugged out, hands dirty, lips mouthing the words, '_what the fuck_' and '_there is mud on my new boots!_' and '_you owe me_.' She disappeared again with awkward, crouching steps. Then, like the earth itself was expelling a phytobezoar from the depths of hell, a giant, slimy mass of varied yard waste flew at the window.

_THUMP! SPLAT!_ Twigs snapped. Dirty water splashed in a spectacular show of mud colliding with glass. Wet leaves clung to the window, leaving a filthy trail as gravity slowly pulled at them.

"Enough!" Miss Dixon shouted over the classroom's cacophony. "Stop what you're doing! Everyone!" The motorized roar of thirty sewing machines ground to a halt. "Who is it? Who is responsible?" she demanded, pointing an angry, shaking finger at the window. "Which one of you can explain the reason for this?"

The room held its breath, quiet enough to hear a pin drop. Stephanie tried to will away the flush she felt warming her cheeks. She nervously checked the clock again. Two minutes and counting. Eddie reached over and punched her in the thigh. "Stop it," he mumbled without moving his lips. Stephanie sucked in a breath through clenched teeth and rubbed the furious charley horse Eddie had given her.

"Is there something you would like to share with the class, Mr. Gazarra?"

His denial was quick and short with wide, doe eyes and a shake of his head, the picture of innocence.

A haughty snort from the other side of the room gave Eddie a reprieve while simultaneously condemning Mary Lou. "It's Molnar. She's outside that window." Barbara Jean 'Boom Boom' Biabloki was a bitch. She had more boob then should be allowed to any student in a public high school and used it all to treat the guys around her like they were hired help. Stephanie and Mary Lou hated her for it and Boom Boom hated Eddie because he was among the very few teenage males who were immune to her jiggling.

"Mary Lou Molnar?" Miss Dixon stood from her desk and craned her neck to peer out of the window through the muck still oozing down the glass. "Impossible," she snapped. Then something she saw made her scoff in disbelief, "oh, I don't think so, not today," and bustled out of the classroom, elbows pumping and orthopedic shoes squeaking.

The sound of her steps had just faded down the hall when the bell sounded. Stephanie and Eddie exchanged an elated look and then high-tailed it out of there, incomplete sewing projects in tow.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Eddie and Stephanie were waiting at the bike racks near the East doors when Mary Lou got out of detention. They plastered on their best 'we're too cute to hate' smiles as she angrily stalked in their direction. "You both owe me big time. We're talking King Kong sized debt here."

"Let me carry your bag for you," Eddie scooped her heavy backpack out of her grasp.

"You never said anything about mud. Do you see this?" she asked, visibly piqued. She gestured at her now mud splashed boots. "You are so buying me a new pair. These were suede!"

"Do you need a signature?" Stephanie asked, accepting the detention slip Mary Lou handed to her. The three of them had learned to forge each other's parents' signatures years before, and Stephanie faked Mr. Molnar's better than the others.

Mary Lou took back the signed form and crossed her arms at them. "You're both finding partners for a group date on Lenny's birthday," she dictated. "You have two weeks."

"Seriously?" Eddie rolled his eyes. He'd broken up with his steady girlfriend earlier that month and was still pining for her.

"My dad says he'll only extend my curfew that night if other people go out with us. That means you two."

"I'll get Shirley to go with you," Stephanie assured him. "She owes me and I know you think she's cute."

Eddie sighed and started to lead the way home. "I should have just told you tough shit and handed in my project the way it was."

"You're too sweet for that, Ed. That's why we love you." They fell into step beside him, each linking an arm on either of his sides.

"Hey, 'Lou," Stephanie said after a minute of congenial silence, "Lenny's friends with Mickey Zale, isn't he?"

(1,685 words)

**A/N: This was written in response to a group challenge at Y!PerPlum. Thank you for reading.**


	2. Negotium

Disclaimer– I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

Sally's Sewing Challenge – PerfectlyPlum, April 2011

**Communis Negotium  
><strong>By PinPin

The familiar hammering of four impatient fists sounded against the back door and echoed through to the front counters of the Tasty Pastry. "For crying out loud," she muttered to herself and wiped her hands on her smock. The main window and the bakery cases were all dark, the closed sign had been flipped, and Stephanie was the sole body on the premises. At least for the next few moments. The muffled voices of her enthusiastic guests became audible as she unlatched the locks on the door and cracked it open.

Eddie and Mary Lou stuck their heads inside and sing-songed, "Open up Sugar Plum, we've got a craving!"

She stepped back to let them in with a reluctant grin. "You're early."

"We need Big Blue," Eddie said and traipsed in straight to the pastry counter and snagged some stale crostoli from the bin of the day's discards. "It should be a crime to throw this stuff away every night."

"Why?"

"It's still perfectly good," he brushed powdered sugar off his shirt.

"No, why do you need Big Blue?" Stephanie returned to clearing out the cookie case.

Eddie finished his treat and moved around the shop, turning the chairs up onto the tables. "_We_ need Blue," he said motioning to the three of them, "because _we_ are going to Jerry's party tonight."

Mary Lou's older brother Jerry was a sophomore at the College of New Jersey. He was a good student, a good athlete, good-looking, and believed that it meant he had the right to give any woman he wanted a good goosing. Stephanie wrinkled her nose. "Jerry?"

Mary Lou held her hands up, "Hey, I told him no, but he won't listen to me."

"We only have to stay long enough to steal some beer," Eddie conciliated.

"We can steal beer in Trenton," Mary Lou argued.

"Not true," he argued right back, "Mrs. Djokovic replaced the lock on the garage."

They both frowned at each other and turned to Stephanie for the tie breaker.

She crooked an apologetic brow, "I'm sorry, Eddie, but if I'm going to get an extended curfew next week like we promised, I have to stay out of trouble in the mean time."

"Oh, come on," Eddie bewailed in a huff. "Is there no limit to the ways that class can suck complete balls? It's the weekend and it's still ruining my day."

"We owe her," she reminded him.

Mary Lou was sweeping the floor, while Eddie followed her with the mop. "Seriously, why did you two even take the class? This was the third sewing project crisis in a row and you're still teetering on the pass/fail line. There were other choices you know."

"Well, we weren't about to sign up for parenting class together," Eddie said with a grimace. He and Stephanie each gave a small shudder as they imagined how their mothers would have reacted to that.

"Besides," she added, "even if I'm terrible at it, **I prefer sewing to bossing little children**."

"Odd, since you're so good at bossing…" Mary Lou laughed.

Stephanie finished emptying the cases and they each gathered up bags of trash and discards and headed out to the dumpster in the back. "I thought 'Lou said we were going to meet Lenny over at the pool hall tonight?" Stephanie asked, poorly feigning disinterest.

Lenny had a weekend job at _The Pocket_, a blue collar billiard hall with a door that carded at 18, whereas most local bars carded at 21. The nights when Lenny worked, his friends congregated there trying, but only occasionally succeeding, to get the bartender to accept their bogus IDs. And sometimes the group included the Zale brothers.

Eddie and Mary Lou exchanged an amused look. Stephanie hated the pool hall. "Michael isn't there tonight," Mary Lou said in apology.

"I didn't…" Stephanie trailed off, realizing how useless it was denying that was the reason she'd mentioned it. Both the Zale brothers had already graduated and without a little assistance from Lenny via Mary Lou, she had little hope of seeing him anywhere other than church in the next week. "Well we can still go see Lenny if you want. I don't mind pool really."

"And he isn't going to show up there either," Eddie added.

Stephanie heaved a sigh. She took off her apron, let down her hair, locked the Tasty Pastry door behind her, and joined her friends on the street for the short walk back to Eddie's house.

Mary Lou looked at him in surprise, "How do you know that?"

"I did some asking around," he told them with a proud grin.

Stephanie folded disgruntled arms, "_asking around_?"

"**There's nothing more exciting than starting a new project**."

"Please," she groaned, "don't refer to my love life as a project, like you're donating to a cause."

"What love life?" Eddie taunted.

"You're one to talk Valentino."

"Hey, I already have my date for next week."

She scoffed, "Yeah, thanks to me!"

"Who cares how you get to the goal line as long as there's cheering once you charge through?"

Stephanie made a retching gesture and pushed him hard enough that he staggered, laughing, into the street for a moment.

"It never fails, Eddie," Mary Lou gave her head a disapproving shake at their antics. "Just when I think we might have been successful with you, your Y chromosome rears its ugly head."

"Well, my Y chromosome knows where Mickey Zale is going to be tonight. Anyone interested?" he asked, bumping shoulders with Stephanie.

"Yes," she admitted reluctantly.

"He is at the Trenton Catholic/Paul VI basketball game." He raised hopeful brows, "does this mean we get Big Blue tonight?"

"Yes," she answered, suddenly with much less reluctance, "we can make the second half."

(960 words)

**A/N: This was written in response to a group challenge at Y!PerPlum. The series may or may not continue. Thank you for reading!**


	3. Consilium

Disclaimer – I do not own the characters, etc. I am only borrowing them from Janet. This is not for profit, just for kicks.

Xy's Challenges – BabeSquad & PerfectlyPlum, July 2011

**Communis Consilium  
><strong>By PinPin (with many thanks to beta, Sharon)

The Gazarra's lived in a small, teal, single family Craftsman with rose-colored, lace sheers and a porch light that was never, ever buzzing or broken. At the edge of the 'Burg proper, their home was firmly ensconced in a middle-class Italian neighborhood, where local dentists and business owners moved when their families and incomes outgrew their starter home. It was only a few streets away from the blue-collar, duplex-laden neighborhood where the Plum's and Molnar's resided, but when the weather was warm and flowers bloomed, the manicured lawns could make it seem ever farther away than usual.

Mrs. Gazarra was in the kitchen as they came in through the back door. She was folding freshly ironed dining linens and keeping one eye on a giant pot of bubbling red gravy. She greeted Stephanie and Mary Lou politely and offered them something to eat and drink. They politely declined, "no, thank you, Mrs. G."

"We're going to go to the Trenton Catholic game as soon as I change," Eddie told his mother as they moved through the kitchen and headed down the hall towards his room. He worked at a local laundry where the uniform was the epitome of unacceptable social attire. While they were still in the hall, he pulled off his work shirt; a hideous, powder-blue polo that was decorated in smiley faces, read 'Neighborhood Soap Happiness' in bubble letters, and always stunk of an unholy combination of sweat and fabric softener.

"Edward," his mother scolded, scandalized at his immodesty.

"Nothing they haven't seen, Ma."

"Perché Lei li dà mostre!" she shouted. "I don't know what I've done wrong with you! Don't you dare close that door!" [1]

The Gazarra's had a house rule that Stephanie and Mary Lou weren't allowed to be alone with Eddie in his room with the door shut. In the last year though, Eddie had stopped heeding it and his mother had started to threaten that she'd have his father take the door off completely if he wouldn't abide her demands... to which Eddie always replied that he'd simply put it back up.

He kicked the door closed behind them as he shouted back at her with a smile, "I cast off thy Puritan shackles!"

"You're asking your Mama for a sore mouth!" she shrieked. They could still hear her yelling from the other end of the house. "Preghi che Lei non ereditò il seme maledetto di Suo padre! Libertino malvagio diabolico!" [2]

Eddie's bedroom was stereotypically male and unkempt. Stephanie headed for his desk. She grabbed a dirty pair of shorts off the floor and used them to beat some crumbs off the seat of his desk chair before she slumped into it. "That's you all over, Ed," she chortled, always impressed and amused at Eddie's lack of fear at his mother's rants, "the liberated hound, a true free spirit that cannot be contained."

"Yep," Eddie lobbed back his own dose of sarcasm at her. "I fly in the face of convention and live to challenge your prosaic suburban norms."

Mary Lou shoved a pile of general household debris to the side as she crossed the room and sank down on his unmade bed. "Maybe you could ease up on the struggle a little and make an exception for hygiene," she sniffed the air for a second, "it's already taken enough of a beating from you as it is." She fished a dirty sock out from under the pillow next to her and tossed it at Stephanie, who batted it away with a disgusted scoff.

"Is this part of the sociocultural revolution?" Stephanie teased and waved a _Cracked_ magazine that she'd dug out of the mess on his desktop.

"Shut up."

"Hey, you know those shoes that I thought I left here?" Mary Lou asked Eddie as she leaned over to peek under his bed. "Did I leave them here?"

"I don't know," he shrugged, "if you did they're under there somewhere."

"Found one of them." Mary Lou emerged from a netherworld of dust bunnies, empty soda bottles, and poorly hidden _Playboy_'s with one of her strappy sandals and an old, _Electric Company_ pencil box.

Eddie watched her open the box and pick through its contents, pulling out his rolling papers and one of the plastic bags. "You can't have all of that; some of it's my brother's," he warned, pointing at her.

"Do you keep your great grandfather's cufflinks with your weed and porn?" she asked, indicating the family heirlooms rolling around loosely at the bottom of the box.

Eddie shrugged. "It's where I hide my valuables."

"You're kind of a creep," she derided, already prepping bud and paper. "Where's the other shoe?"

"Probably in the corner somewhere," he indicated a large pile of junk and dirty laundry that had been kicked into a heap on the other side of the room. Stephanie sifted through the mass as Eddie fished through his dresser for clean socks. "Here," Eddie pulled a worn t-shirt from his bottom drawer and held it out to Stephanie, "put this on."

"Why?" she asked, taking it from him and holding it up. It was a faded Jersey Devils tee, a remnant from their childhood that was too small to be comfortable for Eddie to wear ever again.

"It'll look good and you want to score tonight, don't you?"

Mary Lou grimaced, "God, you're so crass."

"Hey, I'm just doing this for 'Lou," Stephanie barked defensively, "she's the one who needs us to get dates for next week."

"Yeah right," he contradicted her, "like you haven't been panting over Zale for months. Come on, Steph, isn't that why we're going to the game in the first place? Just trust me and wear the shirt. There's a reason guys let their girlfriends wear their clothes."

Mary Lou crossed her arms with indignation and snapped, "to mark their territory?"

Eddie smirked. "Do I detect a hint of projection in your outrage?"

"Women are not property," she declared.

The others both rolled their eyes. Mary Lou had recently had a big fight with Lenny about her college plans. He knew that she'd get accepted if she applied and he wanted her to go, not stay behind just to be with him. But 'Lou said it was her life and those choices weren't his to make. She already had plans to get her cosmetology license and start working right away. They broke up over it – for, _gasp_, almost an entire week – and during that time she read the _SCUM Manifes__to_. Subsequently, whenever she had any small disagreement with Lenny or Eddie, she suffered from acute bouts of militant feminism that even tempted Stephanie to tell her to keep her pretty mouth shut and go find a floor to mop.

"I know that 'Lou. So you can take off the sash now," he japed. "You've already won the vote."

"In fairness," Stephanie said with raised brows, "the remark about the sash sounds even more ignorant than implying that it is men who _allow_ women to be viewed as property by granting them _permission_ to wear their clothing as some kind of flag of conquest."

"Alright, alright. Other than staking a claim," Eddie explained, momentarily turning to Mary Lou with a slight bow and the mollifying concession, "or possibly even because of it and the base, dominating thrill we get from it," he turned back to Stephanie and waved at the shirt in her hand, "a girl in a boys' shirt is just plain fucking hot. Besides, wearing our clothes is as much a mark of possession for you as it is for us."

"But how does wearing some _other_ guy's clothes help me? It'll make him think I'm already taken." Stephanie smiled. She always loved questioning Eddie about his opinions. You never knew if you were going to get a sociological dissertation or if he was just going to cuss a little and then move on to a new topic.

"He won't be thinking about where you got it. **God gave us all a penis and a brain, but only enough blood to run one at a time. **[3] That shirt is several sizes too small for you. It's not rocket science." Stephanie snorted with amusement and obediently replaced her Tasty Pastry top with the tiny tee, all three of them comfortable enough to change in each other's presence without shame.

"Neanderthal," Mary Lou accused.

"You're looking a little primitive there yourself," Eddie waggled a pointed finger at the small, faintly bruised marks peeking out from Mary Lou's collar. "Does Lenny have a matching set?" He turned back to Stephanie and considered her for a moment. "You should pull your hair up too."

"What the hell, Ed, are you interviewing to be my stylist?"

"You have a shapely neck,"

Stephanie looked at him like he'd said it in Farsi. "I have a shapely neck?"

"It's a compliment, Steph," he rolled his eyes again, rifling through his closet for his own change of shirt, "but feel free to ignore it. Maybe Mike isn't as big on necks as Lenny obviously is."

Stephanie gathered her curls up onto her head and stretched her neck, examining it curiously in the mirror on the back of the door. "How about you, Ed," she asked, "you like necks?"

"Yeah," he shrugged, "necks are good."

"What?" Mary Lou asked through raucous laughter. "What does that mean? What are you even talking about?"

Stephanie laughed too, snatching up a baseball glove that she found on a shelf and starting to loosen and pull at its leather lace. "What do you like then, Eddie? Are you a boob man?"

Mary Lou only laughed harder. "All men are boob men."

Eddie looked over at Stephanie and crowed, "hey, what the fuck, Plum?"

"Don't pretend you ever use this," she dismissed his outrage, pulling free the leather tie and using it to secure her hair up and back in a high ponytail.

Mary Lou finished with her rolling and replaced the pencil box where she had found it. "Now as for Ed, if I had to go by Holly as his standard…" She glanced over at where a photograph was still tucked into the bottom edge of the frame holding Eddie's signed _E Street Band_ poster. It was a candid photo of Eddie and Holly at the Senior Class Fall Bonfire. He was smiling with his arms around the tall, slender cheerleader with buck teeth, a peeling sunburned nose, and layer after layer of silky black locks. "I'd say he's into butts."

Stephanie followed her gaze to the holdover photograph of Eddie's ex-girlfriend and smiled, "no, not just butts. Legs too."

"Could we drop it, please?" he nearly whined.

"You're the one who brought it up. We're trying to help Steph, remember?" She surveyed Stephanie with a thoughtful squint for several beats and then hopped up and undid her fly. "Here, wear my jeans."

Stephanie looked down and asked with a pout, "what's wrong with my jeans?"

"They look dumpy with the tighter shirt."

"Dumpy?"

"Yeah, dumpy," she repeated. "Switch pants with me." They both pulled off their jeans and exchanged them.

"Jesus," Eddie said when he turned around to find both Stephanie and Mary Lou had taken off their pants, "are you trying to get me castrated?" He dashed to his door and locked it.

"No, we're trying to get Mickey to notice Stephanie."

"Nothing you haven't seen before," Stephanie taunted and gave her sassy, teen-aged, covered-by-only-thin-cotton-panties ass a shake in his direction.

Eddie groaned, "stay away from me with that thing."

Mary Lou sat back on his bed, half-reclined and half-dressed. "What about my legs?"

Eddie hated it when they did this. He liked that the three of them were close enough to have this level of shared trust, but he had his limits. Mary Lou and Stephanie were both very attractive; more attractive than they realized. He knew that perfectly well. There were only a handful of men who knew it better than he did. But he didn't like thinking about it. Even if they were his best friends and he had no romantic interests in them, he was still a red-blooded, eighteen year old, Italian man with an active imagination. Occasionally he'd dream about them and then wake up feeling dirty, like he'd been fantasizing about his sisters. _Shiver_. "Your legs are fine," he reluctantly admitted.

"Just _fine_?"

"No," he released another harried groan, "there's nothing _just_ about them, but I'd rather not dwell on it if you don't mind." Eddie looked over at them and sucked in a sharp breath and quickly turned away again. Now they were both on his bed, on their backs with their feet propped up on his headboard. They each had one leg up in the air as though they were inspecting them for defects. "And would you please sit up and get the hell off my bed?"

"Geez, what's your problem?" Stephanie swung her legs around and off the bed, her heels hitting the floor with a dull _thunk_.

Mary Lou turned over onto her stomach. She plopped her chin up in her hands and absentmindedly pointed and flexed her feet in the air behind her. "What's the matter, don't you love us anymore?"

"**I didn't say I didn't love you. I said, 'stay away from me.'** [4] And will you two hurry up and put some pants on. Do you have any idea what will happen if my mother notices that you two aren't in the same clothes you had on earlier when you came in? There won't be any shouting at all, just the sound of a knife slicing through the air."

They gave in and suited up, including primping their hair and freshening their make-up. They needed to leave if they were going to be at Trenton Catholic Academy in time to catch the game.

"Okay, so other than Mickey's plans for tonight, what else did you learn while you were meddling in my business?" Stephanie asked Eddie once they were back outside and headed to her house to pick-up Big Blue.

"Kenny knew who you were when I mentioned your name. He said they both remember you from Rydzik's end of summer party last year. So does their other brother and one of their cousins."

Stephanie covered her face to stifle the potential scream. She leaned her head on Mary Lou's shoulder as they walked. "Oh god, I was so drunk that night. Tell me I didn't do something embarrassing."

Mary Lou started giggling. "Embarrassing according to whom?"

"Don't worry, Steph," Eddie commented. "While your mother wouldn't have approved, all the guys there that night were definitely cool with it."

(2,447 words)

**A/N: This was written in response to group challenges at Y!BabeSquad & Y!PerPlum. The series may or may not continue. Thank you for reading!**

[ 1 - Because you give them shows! ] [ 2 - Pray that you didn't inherit your father's cursed seed! You wicked, diabolic libertine!] [ 3 - Xy's Independence Day Challenge – BabeSquad] [ 4 - Xy's 4th of July Challenge – PerfectlyPlum]


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